Kiszla: Denver Nuggets unable to tough it out

Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl, center, reacts in the closing seconds of a 92-88 loss to the Golden State Warriors during Game 6 in a first-round NBA playoff series in Oakland, Calif., May 2, 2013.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- With hotel-room keys in their pockets and false bravado on their lips, the Nuggets rode to their doom in the NBA playoffs.

Their shots clanked and their dreams tanked during a 92-88 loss to the Golden State Warriors.

"We couldn't make a shot," Nuggets coach George Karl said Thursday.

Get this arrogance: In the ultimate win-or-go-home game, the Nuggets planned on sleeping in San Francisco after Game 6. They boldly informed the hotel staff at their five-star accommodations to turn down the bed covers for them, insisting they would return to celebrate a victory.

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Before the first team bus rolled across the Bay Bridge toward the arena, Nuggets general manager claimed Masai Ujiri: "I'm leaving something precious in my hotel room."

Well, I guess Ujiri left his heart in San Francisco.

Would somebody please mail it back to Colorado?

The Nuggets showered, packed their bags and took a red-eye charter flight that carried all their regrets back to Denver.

A team lovingly and intelligently built by Ujiri won a record 57 games during the regular season, but ultimately proved it wasn't built to survive the stress test of playoff basketball.

The Nuggets like to run. But they can't hide the reason for this defeat. Denver cannot shoot straight.

After rallying from an 18-point deficit in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets had to score one basket to tie the game from a half-court set during the final 12 seconds of the fourth quarter. They could not do it, with Wilson Chandler missing a 4-foot jumper and a tip.

While Warriors guard Stephen Curry and center Andrew Bogut were outstanding offensively in the clutch, Denver shot 34.7 percent from the field.

For the eighth time in his nine seasons as Denver coach, George Karl was bumped off in the opening round of the playoffs, this time blowing the opportunity of home-court advantage provided by the third seed in the Western Conference.

Elimination games measure the size of the heart as much as the depth of a team's talent.

"The more you move up the ladder of success in the NBA, character, chemistry and intelligence become more valuable. Talent becomes less valuable," Karl said. "There are 10 teams in the league that have enough talent to win a championship. There are probably three, by the end of the playoffs that have the character and the chemistry to actually win the championship. And you're eliminated somewhere along the way by your chemistry, by your character or by your intelligence, not by your talent."

There's no polite way of saying it.

Sure, Denver fought to the end. But this series was blown when the Nuggets got pushed around and lost their aura of invincibility at home, where they had been 38-3 during the regular season, when they squeaked out a victory in Game 1 and let the Warriors steal Game 2.

"In Game 2 we gave back everything we worked to get 57 wins and the third seed. ... And that's on me," Karl said.

In a series full of strange twists, Golden State coach Mark Jackson was fined $25,000 by the NBA for calling the Nuggets dirty "hit men" and Warriors forward David Lee, presumed gone for the postseason with a hip injury, played 87 seconds in Game 6.

"It was weird," Karl said.

When the going got weird, the Nuggets fell apart.

Karl told his players before Game 6: "There's going to be a moment when we get punched."

Denver got decked by the Warriors' 33-point outburst in the third quarter, and never fully recovered.